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Right before that phase, or at the beginning of it, I was dressing for a rush event at my sorority. You didn’t have to dress up, but some people did make an effort. I decided to go with what I thought was a bohemian yet elegant ensemble, a long black fringed skirt that I liked because it was black (duh) yet kind of bohemian. I can’t remember what top I put on with it, but around my hair I wore a wide black cotton headband that hit just above my forehead. I felt confident that I cut a striking figure, so noticeably different from the other girls in their sorority letter sweatshirts.
I was leading some rushees around the house when one of my “sisters” looked at me and snorted. “You look like Rhoda,” she said.
Needless to say, Rhoda Morgenstern, while a lovely and amusing fictional character, was not one of my style icons. I laughed it off, but I was stung. Later I figured out that pulling hair off the forehead was a bad idea for someone with a square face and that my body type was a bit too curvy to look good in hippie wear. I think I still experimented a little, but got better at figuring out what suited me and what didn’t, and I never made quite as big of a fashion faux pas again. I’m just glad it all happened before the advent of digital cameras and Facebook.
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